The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health www.hogg.utexas.edu part of the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, funds mental health services, policy analysis, research, and public education.
The problem is that many individuals receiving services for mental and/or behavioral health conditions, may also have other conditions that require medical assessment and treatment. However, primary care and behavioral healthcare systems historically operate independently without coordination between the systems.
This has resulted in unidentified health conditions, gaps in treatment, ineffective or inappropriate care, and increased costs due to people going to emergency rooms or undergoing hospitalizations in order to be treated for their chronic health conditions.
The State of Texas is trying to make changes in providing healthcare so that behavioral healthcare is always included by using more certified peer specialists. Texas is one of the states that certifies peer specialists and promotes the use of peer support in both inpatient and community-based mental health settings. As of July 2014, about 450 individuals in the State have become certified peer specialists.
Peer specialists provide mental health screenings, one-on-one support, group education, and community referrals. The problem is that certified peer specialists are not common in the Community Health Center (CHC) setting nor has the role of certified peer specialists to work effectively as part of a treatment team been examined or evaluated.
To help integrate healthcare, Hogg Foundation issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) www.hogg.utexas.edu/uploads/documents/RFP%20advancing%20Peer2020Support.pdf titled “Advancing Peer Support in Integrated Health Care” seeks to systematically coordinate primary care services, mental health, and substance use treatment, by supporting CHCs and the use of certified peer specialists.
The foundation plans in the first year through the RFP to award a maximum of three grants up to $30,000 each over four years to support the hiring of certified peer specialists. The second and third grant periods will focus on project implementation with grants expected to be funded at about $100,000 a year.
For grant period four, grants are expected to be funded at about $70,000 on the condition that the grant-funded positions will be successfully generating revenue through billing to supplement the final year of grant funding.
Following a substantial planning period, this project will include using two certified peer specialists in each of the three funded grant sites in Texas to work in team-based care delivering healthcare to prove the value of peer support to the integrated healthcare model.
Nonprofit 501c (3) organizations in Texas are eligible to submit proposals but respondents must be Texas-based CHCs such as FQHCs, FQLAs, or nonprofit, non-federally funded health centers in Texas.
In addition, applicant organization must already have an integrated healthcare approach or model in place and not be planning to use the grant funds to develop a new integrated healthcare program.